


Aubade

by jouissant



Series: L'appel du vide [2]
Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Domestic, Established Relationship, Fluff, Kid Fic, M/M, Scientific hand-waving
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-10
Updated: 2013-11-10
Packaged: 2018-01-01 02:16:34
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,939
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1039133
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jouissant/pseuds/jouissant
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which a child is born, and nobody is ever going to sleep ever again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Aubade

**Author's Note:**

> This is possibly the fluffiest thing I've ever written. Woo!

Jim bounces on the balls of his feet. Next to him, Spock sits up a little straighter on the waiting room couch. He crosses his arms. 

“Are you deliberately endeavoring to increase my anxiety?” he asks. 

“I thought Vulcans didn’t get nervous.” 

Spock gives Jim a look that’s a combination of murderous and pleading, though to the casual observer it would probably just seem like he has some kind of facial tic. Jim abandons the tight circle he’s pacing in the middle of the room and comes to sit beside Spock on the low settee. Spock’s hands grip his own thighs, pale against the black fabric. They’re on leave, technically, but he’s wearing his uniform anyway. 

Jim gets it. There was a brief moment this morning, standing before his suitcase in their guest room at Sarek’s, that Jim considered defaulting to command gold himself. In the end, he put on a pair of jeans and then changed his shirt four times. Somehow, his choice seemed immensely important, like the universe hung in the balance. “Can babies even see in color?” he’d asked Spock, trying and failing to keep from sounding frantic. 

In the end, he went with blue, because it made Spock not-smile when he saw it. According to Spock, color wasn’t super high on a newborn’s priority list. Still, though, Jim thought. Couldn’t hurt to look his best. 

Jim takes Spock’s hands in his. They’re cold; this whole freaking room is freezing, which is the last thing Jim expected from New Vulcan. But then again, freezing-ass medical facilities seem to be another universal constant. 

“Cool temperatures facilitate a sterile environment,” Spock says, looking like he wishes he’d brought a sweater. 

“Ugh,” Jim says. “She’s going to hate us, isn’t she? Well, me. No one could hate you, plus she’s whatever-percent Vulcan, so--”

“Jim,” Spock says. 

“Oh God, she’s definitely going to hate me. She’s going to run away to Vega 5 and become a showgirl. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, there’s not, I can appreciate dancing. Even...naked dancing, oh my God. No, no, I’m cool with that, I definitely am. I just...it’d be great if she could get through college first, but hey, you know me, I don’t judge--”

_“Jim.”_

Spock nudges him with an elbow, and Jim’s about to clutch at him in a totally embarrassing and not at all captainly way when it finally clicks that they’re not alone in the room any more. There’s an appropriately tall, severe-looking Vulcan woman in a long white coat standing just inside the doorway, probably deciding at this very moment that there’s absolutely no way this flailing mess of a human can be trusted with the care of a child. 

“It is time,” she says, because of course Vulcans have to imbue everything with this hardcore incense-and-peppermints vibe. Apparently Spock had been on the receiving end of a series of very strong hints from Sarek that it might be appropriate to have “one of the elders” present for the occasion, but Spock put the kibosh on that pretty quickly, much to Jim’s relief.

Jim actually does kind of clutch at Spock then, and Spock takes hold of Jim’s upper arm and hauls them both upright, brushing nonexistent dust from his uniform tunic before nodding once at Jim, eyes wide. They turn to face the doctor, and Jim has one of those moments where he wishes his life had its own personal soundtrack, because he could definitely go for an encouraging swell of nondiegetic music right about now. Or the theme from _Rocky_ , that would work too. 

They’re led down a long, white hallway, glass-walled on one side with a sweeping view of the mountains. Jim should probably be thinking about how he’s a speck of dust in an endlessly expanding universe, about how profound it is that he’s collided with this other pointier piece of dust, and then further belabor the dust metaphor in contemplation of what they’re about to do, but instead he’s thinking it was a terrible idea to skip breakfast this morning and he hopes Vulcan hospitals have food courts. 

Sublimation, he thinks. So healthy and parental. He walks faster, keeping his eyes on Spock’s back. He wonders if there’s any power in the universe that could persuade Spock to hold hands right now, up to his ears in fellow Vulcans. Probably not. Even as he thinks it, Spock hitches back mid-stride. He half-turns to Jim, reaching back for him. 

“Your species derives comfort from physical contact in times of stress,” he says. “It is logical to acquiesce to your cultural mores on such occasions.” 

Okay, so he says it a little louder than he needs to, probably for their host’s benefit, but Jim’s willing to let that slide. Acquiescence to cultural mores, and all that. The doctor isn’t looking, and there’s nobody else around, so he sneaks a Vulcan kiss before they clasp hands. He matches his pace to Spock’s and they walk the rest of the way side by side. 

Ever since they’d nailed down the logistics of how the whole baby thing was actually going to work, Jim had spent a long time worrying about this moment. For all the obvious reasons, of course, but also because it was just pretty damn hard to reconcile with, well, the old-fashioned way of doing things. 

“Will she be messed up, do you think? Maybe it’s scarring to spend the first nine months of your existence in a giant test tube.” 

“It is not a test tube. It is a highly advanced, highly specialized artificial womb, filled with synthetic amniotic fluid--”

“So, what you’re saying is, it’s a giant vat of goo.” 

“I--”

“ _Vat of goo,_ Spock.” 

“I myself began life in a laboratory, for better or worse. While I admit that my particular genetic makeup has not come without its...attendant personal challenges, I do not dwell on the technical details of my origins.” 

“You might’ve started out in a lab, but you finished up...well, y’know.” Jim gestured inchoately to his extremities. “Don’t you think there might be something to that?” 

“As you were disinclined to consider a sojourn to the fertility pools of Zebulon VI, I could not see an alternative,” Spock said dryly. 

“I’m pretty sure that’s just a folktale.” 

“A certain male ensign aboard the _USS Lovelace_ might argue otherwise, or so I hear,” Spock said. 

Fertility pools aside, for all Jim’s protestations, the solution they’d arrived at was really the only workable one, barring the possibility of a needy orphan falling into their laps, which wasn’t exactly out of the question in their line of work. It had been completely weird, that was for sure. The only facility Spock trusted to handle the Vulcan/Human hybridization process was on the Vulcan colony, so nine months previous the two of them had arranged a brief leave period to make the trip out to the colony and do what needed doing. They hadn’t been allowed to risk contaminating their respective specimens by actually touching each other, so Jim had made Spock sext him from their adjoining masturbation cubicles. It was possibly the least romantic way to procreate, but it had been pretty damn funny all things considered. 

And so it was that shortly thereafter, they’d received a joint personal communication from the New Shi’Kahr University Hospital stating that Operation Vat Baby was a resounding go. Jim definitely hadn’t needed to collect himself in the fresher on the bridge when he got the message, and he and Spock definitely hadn’t resumed shift fifteen minutes late after lunch due to a celebratory quickie in a totally different fresher off the mess hall. 

Jim really doesn’t know what to expect now that the moment is upon them at last, but whatever it is, it certainly isn’t this. The room they walk into is unmistakably a lab, but it’s been transformed into what seems more like a warm, dim cave or a den. The lights are low, and bunches of tall candles are placed around the room at intervals, their flames sending shadows licking up the walls. Jim can’t stifle a gasp at the sight, and Spock’s grip on his hand tightens reflexively. At the center of the room is the much-discussed vat of goo, but even this seems shrouded in a hushed aura of biology and magic that gives Jim pause. 

They’ve seen holos, of course, blurry scans that are hard to make out and frankly a little terrifying. Jim stuck a couple in frames, and taped one over the science console when Spock wasn’t looking, where it had remained despite violating several regulations. Now, though...now they’re here, everyone in the flesh. Here before them, afloat in a fancy fishbowl full of clear and viscous-seeming liquid, is their tiny little humanoid. 

Jim swallows and nudges Spock. “What happens now?” 

Spock shakes his head almost imperceptibly. “I suppose they simply...remove her,” he says, sounding slightly bewildered. 

It seems like an incongruously simple end for such a biologically complex process. It also sounds kind of uncomfortable. “It’s freezing in here,” Jim mutters. “They’re just going to yank her out and that’s that?” 

But then the troop of Vulcans standing around the vat wave them over, and from a shadowy corner of the room comes the gentle sounding of a gong. Vulcans seem to have a thing for ceremonial percussion. “S’chn T’gai Spock,” the doctor says. “James Kirk. Please come forward.” 

Jim twitches reflexively at the use of his full name, and fights the ridiculous urge to shove Spock toward the vat and run. No, he totally dominates that urge, and stands up straight and walks over to the vat with considerable dignity and only a little bit of uncontrollable shaking. If the Vulcans notice, they don’t say anything, bless them. Beside him, Spock is definitely looking a little peaky, but maybe it’s just the weird light. 

Jim clears his throat. “So, how’s this going to go down?” 

The doctor--T’Vera, he remembers--takes about half a second to parse Jim’s phrasing before nodding tightly. “We will remove the fetus from the gestation chamber,” she says, because apparently it really is just that simple. Gestation chamber, Jim thinks. He likes that way better than vat. He files it away for a future “where did I come from” discussion, and holy shit, they’re actually going to have one of those someday. He thinks about Spock navigating that particular minefield and smiles. 

T’Vera and her attendants slip on gloves, and then to Jim’s surprise they hold out pairs to Spock and him too. “One of you may elect to facilitate the birth process, if you wish,” she says. 

They look at each other, and Jim starts saying, “Why don’t you--” the same moment Spock looks at him kind of hopefully. “Perhaps--” 

Jim nods vigorously and gestures for Spock to put the gloves on. He’s about to slip a hand in when--

“Wait,” Jim says. He steps closer, takes both of Spock’s hands in his. They’re still cold, and if he concentrates Jim thinks he can feel the slightest suggestion of a tremor there. Spock’s eyes dart over to his fellows; after all, what they’re doing is incredibly inappropriate in this context. But right now, Jim is heedless of propriety, and he thinks there’s a little touch of reckless abandon flowing across the bond too. Maybe Spock’s been paying attention to the whole leap without looking thing after all. 

“I love you,” Jim says. “And whatever happens, I’m really glad I’m doing this with you. I just...I wanted to tell you that now, before things get crazy.” 

“I reciprocate your sentiment,” Spock says softly, just as a jerky tadpole movement from the chamber reminds them what they’re here for. 

“You ready?” Jim says. 

Spock holds up his hands, encased in blue nitrile. He raises an eyebrow. “As I will ever be,” he says. 

There’s some kind of mechanism by which they can lower the gestation chamber, so it slowly works its way down to about Spock’s chest height. At the top, there’s a round opening a little like a porthole, and a locking keypad T’Vera punches a series of numbers into. There’s a hiss, and the top of the chamber pops up with a release of pressure, and then hell if T’Vera’s not cranking it back like the top of an old-fashioned glass jar. 

“Come closer,” she says to them. One of the other attendants hands Jim a towel, and for a second he casts about mentally before realizing that that’s where the baby’s supposed to go. 

_Wait, no,_ he thinks. _There’s no way I can--_

Spock looks at T’Vera as if for permission, and plunges his gloved hands into the chamber. 

When Spock pulls her out, hands gripping tight under her arms, she screws up her face and opens her mouth like a gasping fish. Jim’s first thought, somewhat uncharitably, is that she looks like a pissed-off grub lately dislodged from beneath a particularly cozy rock or log. But then she kind of writhes to one side, and opens her eyes and _looks at him_ , and Jim’s totally lost. 

He feels his mouth drop open and holds out his towel-draped arms without a second thought. As Spock lowers her carefully into them, he raises his head and looks at Jim, looks at Jim holding her, and if Jim could bottle the look of pure wonder on Spock’s face he’d never need anything else good out of life ever again. 

“She is...perfect,” Spock says. 

“Don’t sound so surprised,” Jim says thickly, but he’s laughing and holding her to him, wrapping the towel around her tighter because it’s chilly as fuck and she’s starting to make this mewling cat noise. He peers around the side of her head, trying valiantly to be subtle. But he can’t mask his grin as he reaches out and touches it: a perfect, miniature pointed ear. 

“Um. She’s got two, right?”

Spock makes a show of checking. “Affirmative,” he says. 

“Cool,” Jim says, his head quietly exploding. She starts to cry, the cat noise escalating to a series of squawks. “Hey,” Jim says. “Hey, baby. It’s okay.” 

T’Vera steps in then, apparently bent on a bunch of poking and prodding to confirm things are copacetic beyond Jim’s ear obsession, and there’s this weird moment where Jim’s arms won’t really move to give their daughter up. Spock hovers next to them, finally putting an arm around Jim and sort of holding him steady while T’Vera reaches in and absconds with the baby, which is all kinds of wrong to Jim’s lizard brain but which his higher functions have somehow managed to identify as necessary. 

“She will be returned to you with the utmost speed,” T’Vera says crisply, with the air of someone who’s done this a thousand times and is fairly used to dealing with gobsmacked new parents. “If you would adjourn to the waiting room again--”

Now Spock’s the one just kind of standing there blinking, hands twitching like he might possibly grab the baby back and run. Jim decides there’s nothing for it but to get ahold of himself, kiss their daughter on her still slightly gooey forehead, and march Spock back to the waiting room before collapsing on the couch in a fit of semi-hysterics. “Hey Spock,” he says through gales of laughter. “I heard the craziest fucking rumor that we had a baby.” 

Eventually, he recovers enough to grab Spock around the shoulders, kiss him soundly on the mouth, and take out his comm. With shaking fingers, he keys in the numbers. 

“Is this Uncle Bones?” he says when the call connects, and he must be on speaker because he hears the room erupt.

***

Jim can’t sleep.

This is the cruelest irony he’s ever encountered, because he’s so exhausted the concept has lost all meaning. He’s had the dubious honor of being considered torture-worthy by 4 species and counting, though for whatever reason none of them ever saw fit to include sleep deprivation in their repertoire. Which is really unfortunate for them, because he has a feeling that the Federation would be on its knees pretty darn quick if any of them ever cottoned on. 

All he wants to do is sleep. Once upon a time, Jim had a healthy fantasy life, but these days the only thing he can bring himself to daydream about is eight hours of motherfucking REM sleep. He’d seriously consider killing for it at this point, because hey, they have beds in jail. He wants to check himself into a hotel, or possibly a mental institution, and get in bed alone and sleep until he can’t sleep anymore. And Spock, with his stupid Vulcan circadian rhythms and reduced need for sleep blah blah can go fuck himself, because Jim is _so fucking tired._

And he cannot fucking sleep. 

To be fair to Spock, he doesn’t really have it much better. The reason Jim can’t sleep is that the second he closes his eyes, all he can do is hear her, every little breath and squeak and stir, and Spock may need less sleep than Jim does, but he also has way better hearing. The first week or so, they’d lain there side by side like a couple of corpses in rigor mortis, Spock’s eyes dinner-plate wide. 

“I detect a slight discrepancy in her rate of respiration,” Spock would say. “Perhaps I should--” 

“You were just over there five minutes ago.” Then, “But...yeah, we should check. You stay here, I’ll do it.” 

“I require less--”

“I _said_ I’ll do it.” 

Rinse, repeat, ad nauseum, until the night Jim entered some kind of hallucinatory fugue state and almost tossed her at Spock like a football when she wouldn’t stop crying. After that, they decided that maybe they should move to a shift system, so they’ve been switching off who gets up with her at night in an effort to ensure they each get a decent chunk of sleep. Whoever’s not on duty is supposed to crash on the sofa, but Vulcan couches are objectively terrible beds, so Spock’s been taking one for the team. It sucks, not sleeping together, which Jim is aware of in his better moments. These generally occur between the hours of 0800 and 1200, when the clean, clear light of the New Vulcan sun penetrates the cozy gloom and he starts to feel a little saner. 

These are the moments Jim clings to in the middle of the night: the three of them on the rock-hard couch, an assortment of pillows to make it bearable. Evie napping, because it turns out newborns nap all the fucking time and you’re supposed to sleep when they do, but the absolute bitch of it is they’re so goddamn cute and your Vulcan bondmate is so goddamn cute that all you can do is stare like an idiot and poke said Vulcan bondmate periodically and say: 

“That’s our baby, Spock. That’s _our baby_.” 

And Spock actually smiles at that, a real smile, and it’s probably because--despite Vulcan circadian rhythms or whatever--he’s really far gone with the whole sleep thing too. Jim doesn’t care, though, because he’s fucking smiling. So he’ll sit on the couch and watch Spock watch her and fall even further into this exhausted hole, and every night when he’s pretty sure he’s coming completely unhinged and will never be quite sane again he vows that that’s it, tomorrow he’s sleeping when she sleeps. Goddammit. 

But Spock, smiling. So. 

When she’s a month old, Sarek basically breaks into the house and kidnaps her. Okay, technically he’s “assuming responsibility for Eve’s care and feeding” for the night, so Jim and Spock can go attempt to reclaim some vestige of their wits and maybe shower, but it feels a lot like kidnapping to Jim. Sarek’s home on New Vulcan is more like a compound, so Jim and Spock are left to their own devices while Sarek drags a bunch of baby detritus over to his place on the opposite side of the courtyard. 

“I don’t like it,” Jim says, flopping down on the couch and immediately getting back up again. 

“I find that I concur,” Spock says. “Though it is likely an instinctual response to her removal from our presence, and will ostensibly lessen over time.” 

“Not very convincing.” Jim moves behind him, resting his chin on Spock’s shoulder. “So, what are we going to do with ourselves?”

***

Jim wakes up to soft lamplight. Spock is sitting up in bed reading, so Jim drags himself vertical and slumps against him. Spock raises his arm to let Jim slip beneath it, then rearranges his PADD. He turns his head and kisses Jim absently on the temple.

“Am I disturbing you?” 

“No, you’re fine.” He scrubs a hand over his face. “What time is it?” 

“0100.” 

Jim yawns. He’s been passed out for hours and it feels amazing, now that some of the sleep-drunk haze is starting to ebb. “Your dad comm?” 

“He did not,” Spock says, setting his PADD on the bedside table and curling into Jim. “I am attempting to take the lack of communication at face value.” 

“You thought about going over there and peeking in the windows, didn’t you?” 

“I considered sending a comm.” 

“Uh huh.” Jim kisses Spock’s bare shoulder. Experimentally, because he’s not really a hundred percent sure his body has enough energy in reserve to even consider this, he kisses him again, letting his mouth drift across Spock’s chest. He notes the subtle shift in Spock’s breathing, the way he turns into Jim and lifts his chin just so, suggestively, because Spock’s a sucker for getting kissed on the neck. There’s an unmistakable twitch from down south. Back in business, Jim thinks. 

“You wanna do it?”

Spock gives him a faintly withering look. It’s cool; if Jim squints he’s sure he can see love and affection in there somewhere. 

“Is that not how we got ourselves into this situation in the first place?” Spock says. 

Jim snorts. “Come on, I don’t think we can ever touch that, Spock. Eight o’clock in the morning, separate rooms, 20-year-old Andorian porn on a continuous loop? It was the most romantic moment of my life.” 

“My holoscreen was malfunctioning,” Spock says. 

“Mmm. Lucky for you you have an eidetic memory.” 

Spock huffs, and it could almost have been a laugh. Jim slides a hand behind Spock’s head and kisses him in earnest, sliding over on the bed to straddle him. He’s gratified to note that Spock seems to be responding positively to his ministrations. “Oh my god, how long has it been?” Jim murmurs. 

“Is that a rhetorical question?” 

“Better let it be,” Jim says, even though he knows the last time as surely as Spock does: their last night on the ship before they left on family leave, just over a month ago. It’s definitely the longest he’s ever gone without since they’ve been together. While he really hasn’t been in much of a state to miss sex, now that the prospect is right here in front of him he’s completely dumbfounded that he doesn’t literally want this every second. 

Something about the edge of desperation he feels reminds him of the early days, when the two of them revelled in the fact that there was his thing called sex! That they could have! With each other! Whenever and wherever they wanted! Although Spock has this boring obsession with the concepts of “appropriateness” and “professionalism,” so mostly just their beds and once in a jeffries tube when Jim was drunk and particularly persuasive. 

Jim grinds into Spock’s lap, smirking at the way Spock’s eyes close, the way he sucks in his bottom lip at the contact. Jim runs his fingers over the line of Spock’s jaw, back to the pinna of one of those ears he likes so much. “What do you want?” he asks. 

Spock swallows, letting his hands drift down to the small of Jim’s back, then lower. Jim sits up and lets Spock get a good handful of his ass, lets him squeeze appreciatively. He fights the urge to make a bratty comment, because who wouldn’t want this ass after a month. But Spock’s been known to take the whole bossy bottom thing the wrong (right) way, and Jim’s award-winning ass is as hot as ever but distinctly out of practice. 

“Yeah,” he says, running a thumb over Spock’s lower lip. “You wanna fuck it?” 

Spock kind of whines at that, which is a ringing endorsement if Jim’s ever heard one, so he leans down and kisses him again before canting up on his knees to start wriggling out of his boxers, helping Spock do the same. It feels a little slower now, a little clumsy as they finish undressing and Jim crawls down the bed. He takes Spock’s narrow hips in his hands and gives his cock an appraising look. It’s half-hard already, kind of flopping back against his belly, and Jim licks his lips automatically at the sight of it. He leans down and grips Spock at the base, fist curled in the dark hair there, and takes Spock into his mouth. He grins around his mouthful as Spock exhales, and out of the corner of Jim’s eye he can see Spock clutch at the sheets. 

_Don’t get too used to this,_ he says across the bond. _Just going to get you ready for me._

Spock’s already moved past language, but Jim gets the impression that’s fine by him. 

He swallows Spock all the way down, all the way to the root, to bury his nose in the skin there and bask in the feeling of Spock’s mind being blown. Jim gives a pretty mean blowjob, and Spock is a huge fan. He’s always been reticent during sex, and Jim used to fight hard for every gasp and moan. But with the bond comes a rush-hour dual expressway between their brains, if they want it and sometimes even when they don’t. Turns out that in his own head, Spock’s kind of a talker after all. They’re sensations, mostly, but the way they’re colored and magnified, they feel like language. Jim lets go, lets them come, lets the ghost of Spock’s pleasure course over his own cock. When Spock gets a little too twitchy and breathy, Jim pulls off, giving him one last slow jerk, just because he likes to look. He’s sprawled out on the bed; greener than usual with the flush of sex and the contrast of the white linens, and his face is a masterwork of tension.

Jim takes a second to contemplate how exactly he wants this to go down, but Spock’s evidently beaten him to the punch, sitting up and pulling gently at Jim’s shoulder. 

“Lie back,” he says. “Let me--”

Jim complies, and now it’s Spock’s turn to settle between Jim’s thighs. He runs his hand lightly over Jim’s cock, and the look of reverence that falls over his face then tugs at Jim’s heart a little. But then his hands move lower, and his mouth follows, and it’s Jim’s turn to arch against the bed. And Spock is such an ass, he’s the absolute worst. Because Spock is a goddamn tease. He’s breathing and nibbling and licking all around the softest, palest parts of Jim, his tongue just barely insinuating that it might one day soon deign to meander where Jim wants it to go. It’s fucking foolproof, the way having Spock everywhere but where Jim wants him drives him over the edge with need so that all he can think about is how it’s going to feel to be filled. 

“C’mon,” he says, and it’s so close to a whine already it should be embarrassing, but it’s Spock and maybe if Jim’s lucky he’ll take the opportunity to go mad with power. 

_Patience is a virtue._

“I hate you,” Jim says, just as Spock licks a stripe over to Jim’s hole and makes Jim writhe on the bed totally shamelessly. 

Spock makes a mental gesture that Jim’s going to call the equivalent of a chuckle, though it’s really got more of a supervillain vibe if you really want to get technical and _Oh_ \---

Spock is spreading Jim with his fingers. He’s sliding all over the place in a slick of spit, licking and sucking, here and there a scrape of teeth on tender skin like Spock’s actually trying to eat him alive. _Tempting,_ thinks Spock. 

Jim actually arches backward at that, because the word trips something in his brain and he gets a flash of Spock, eyes feral and fathomless, face a spray of gore. And whoa, that’s dark but apparently his body is picking up what his brain’s putting down because-- 

Jim reaches down, clawing at Spock’s shoulder. “Come up here,” he says. “Come on, I need it, I need--”

“Yes,” Spock says, looking up at Jim from between his thighs. His face is a shining mess Jim shouldn’t want to kiss as much as he does. 

“God, come here,” he says again, reaching. 

He does kiss Spock then, pulls him into a sloppy clash of teeth. He lies back, twisting and reaching as he does so to grab the lube. He tosses it at Spock, who’s so busy staring at Jim that he misses. The tube catches him on the chest with a wettish smack, but he recovers and flips the top open, squeezing into his hand and looking down at Jim like he’s about to start some kind of meticulous preparation process.

“Spock,” Jim says, shaking his head. 

“Are you certain--”

“Yes, just--” 

Because Jim wants it now, wants the burn and sting of it if it means he gets Spock closer, as close as bodies can be, as safe as houses. Spock slicks himself with lube and lines himself up, biting his lip in concentration like he’s conducting some sort of delicate experiment, and the easy, unstudied sweetness of it gets Jim in the solar plexus unexpectedly. 

_Spock._

Spock looks up and their eyes meet as he slides in. It hurts, but it’s an achy, moreish kind of pain that Jim kind of wants to wallow in, so he closes his eyes and breathes out through his nose and flexes his toes until Spock bottoms out with a choked-off cry. He pitches forward on his hands, his face drawing level over Jim’s and his bangs falling forward away from his face. His eyes are closed, and there’s a faint sheen of moisture visible beneath his lashes. 

_Are you well?_ Even unspoken his tone’s a little shaky, which makes Jim laugh, which--

“Ah!” Spock bites his lip again, and over the bond Jim can feel the steely flutter of his controls. “If you wish this to last--” 

Jim huffs out a breath. “Fuck it,” he says. “Don’t worry about it.” 

“But--”

Jim reaches up, puts a hand to Spock’s face in what’s more of a gentle, sweaty slap than a caress. He circles his hips, moving so he takes Spock in just a fraction of an inch deeper. “I’m good. It’s really good. C’mon and fuck me, okay?” 

Spock looks a little beside himself at that, but he nods and then wastes no time sliding almost all the way out of Jim and slamming back in so hard Jim cries out and gets his head jammed back into the headboard. 

Spock makes an apologetic noise and cards his fingers briefly through Jim’s hair, but Jim thinks _no no no I’m good please_ and Spock shakes his head like Jim’s crazy but he’s also balls deep so he’s not going to complain too terribly vigorously about being ordered to proceed. And god, it’s so hot, the way Spock’s corkscrewing in and out of him, the brief shock of pain as he slams home or hits the wrong angle. It’s raw in a way they haven’t been with each other, haven’t been able to be for frayed nerves and a certain tiny creature eggshell-light and fragile as bird. Jim needs it, he thinks, they both need the reminder, for some reason he can’t quite define this late at night and this close to coming. 

Spock shifts his weight onto his hands again and Jim watches his face, the misfire of a twitching muscle in his jaw, the leaping pulse at his throat. He thinks about the way white is every color and no color at all, how in this moment Spock’s blank face mirrors everything Jim has ever felt with or for him. He watches Spock until the very end, when his eyes slam shut of their own volition, and once upon a time a couple minutes ago he thought about wanting to meld, but it’s too late for that, too late to do anything but reach back up and cup Spock’s face like Jim could bring their minds together through sheer force of wanting. Jim slides a hand between their bodies and finds his cock. He’s so close and so full of Spock he only needs a rough series of jerks before he’s coming all over his own stomach in hot pulses. Spock looks down at the mess Jim’s made and there’s the briefest flash of teeth as he reaches down and trails two fingers through it, brings them back up to Jim’s mouth. 

_Yeah, look what you did,_ Jim thinks, nibbling at Spock’s fingertips.

Spock’s eyes are closed when he comes. _I love you,_ he thinks in Standard, and the words hang warm in Jim’s head.

***

“What do you think she’s doing right now?” They’re back in bed after a brief trip to the sonics. The haze of sleep is starting to creep back in, and Jim’s thinking about building a blanket fort.

Spock runs his fingers through Jim’s only slightly shower-matted hair. “Statistically speaking, she is likely asleep.” 

Jim snorts. “If she sleeps through for Sarek, I’m going to lose it. Un--fucking--fair. But hey, he’s really good with her, you know?” He nudges Spock. 

“I have noticed,” Spock says in a tone that implies expectations have been exceeded. It’s a tone Jim’s intimately familiar with at this point, having forged a career, a relationship, and now a family that way. He reaches down to find Spock’s hand, running his fingers over the knob of bone at his wrist. 

“I wish your mom could’ve met her,” Jim says. “Do you think--”

“I am certain, were my mother still alive, she would have all manner of strong opinions on Eve’s care and our doubtless precipitous rate of failure in this area. Likely, we would have come to metaphorical blows on more than one occasion,” Spock says wryly. He exhales. “She would have loved her.” 

They turn the lights out after that, and Jim lies in the dark and listens to Spock’s breathing, waiting for it to slow and steady the way it always does when he loses consciousness. But it doesn’t happen, and presently Jim sits up to see Spock awake, chewing on his lip as if in consideration. 

“What’s up?” Jim asks. 

“I must confess,” Spock says, “I am finding sleep elusive.” 

“Me too,” Jim says. “It’s weird, right? Her not being here.” 

Spock nods. “I am somewhat surprised by the visceral nature of my response to her absence.” 

Jim screws up his face for a second, thinking. “Does your dad’s place have some kind of security system?” 

“I know the code. Are you suggesting--” 

Jim smacks the mattress decisively. “Come on,” he says. “Midnight raid. Let’s go get our girl.”


End file.
